Gavin Newsom shut down California’s beaches, arrested surfers, and blocked mountain lookouts – then went to dinner at a $350-a-plate Michelin-starred restaurant with a dozen lobbyists.
That was the deal Americans made during COVID – follow every rule or lose everything, while the people writing the rules did whatever they wanted.
But Aaron Rodgers just said four words about the COVID vaccine that the media spent five years trying to bury.
The Quarterback Who Wouldn’t Comply
The COVID establishment called it public health.
It was a compliance test.
And Aaron Rodgers – appearing on Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast this week – said exactly that, without apology.
“We lived through a multi-trillion-dollar worldwide psy-op designed to see how much control they had over us,” Rodgers said.
California blocked scenic overlooks.
https://twitter.com/Holden_Culotta/status/2098097405170217121?s=20
The state handed out Krispy Kreme donuts as vaccine bait while shutting down churches.
And Gavin Newsom’s kids went to school in person – while every other California family got locked out.
The people who made those rules never believed in them.
Rodgers knew it then.
The record confirms it now.
“I don’t know one unvaxxed person who says, ‘Man, I wish I’d gotten that shot,'” Rodgers said. “But I know a ton of people – people with a spine and integrity – who say, ‘I wish I hadn’t gotten it.'”
That’s not a talking point.
That’s the honest answer millions of Americans give each other when the cameras aren’t rolling.
What They Did to Him Then
In November 2021, Rodgers tested positive for COVID after the Green Bay Packers season was underway.
The media discovered he hadn’t been vaccinated.
The takedown was immediate and total.
Sports columnists called him a danger to teammates.
Mainstream outlets ran piece after piece demanding accountability.
https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/2098066203939893368?s=20
The NFL investigated the Packers.
His endorsement deals took hits.
His reputation as a franchise quarterback was buried under five years of “anti-vaxxer” headlines.
His actual reason for declining – a documented allergy to polyethylene glycol, an ingredient in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – barely made it into the coverage.
What the coverage did make very clear: you will be destroyed if you don’t comply.
The People Who Were Wrong About Everything
Six years later, the scoreboard is not close.
The lockdowns that were supposed to stop the virus didn’t stop it.
The vaccines that were mandatory for employment, travel, and basic participation in American life did not prevent transmission.
Newsom’s French Laundry dinner – maskless, shoulder-to-shoulder with lobbyists, at a restaurant closed to ordinary Californians – became the defining image of what the ruling class actually believed about the rules they were enforcing.
Democrat mayors across the country followed the same pattern.
Philadelphia’s mayor dined at an indoor Maryland restaurant while indoor dining was banned in his own city.
Washington’s mayor broke quarantine rules to attend a Biden rally.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi got her hair cut at a shuttered San Francisco salon.
The rules were for you.
But not for them.
Rodgers nailed it: “Governors were out eating burgers, handing out Krispy Kreme donuts and fast food as vaccine incentives – while shutting down churches, businesses, and schools.”
The Part They Still Won’t Talk About
Rodgers called it a test – “to see what they could get away with.”
He’s right, and the results should terrify anyone paying attention.
They got away with locking families out of their own businesses.
They got away with closing churches while leaving liquor stores open as essential services.
https://twitter.com/BreannaMorello/status/2098114751159054591?s=20
They got away with threatening millions of working Americans – nurses, teachers, truck drivers, cops – with termination if they didn’t accept a shot with no long-term safety data.
And then, when it was over, they moved on.
No accountability. No apology. No reckoning.
The media that spent five years calling Aaron Rodgers reckless, dangerous, and selfish has not issued a single correction.
The politicians who destroyed small businesses and separated families from dying relatives in hospitals haven’t lost a single election over it.
The public health officials who told you masks didn’t work, then told you masks were mandatory, then told you two masks were better, are still employed.
Rodgers put it simply: “The difference between a conspiracy and the truth is time.”
Six years have passed.
Sources:
- Chris Ward, “Aaron Rodgers Goes Off on Politicians, U.S. Government in Scorching Rant,” Steelers Now, September 10, 2026.
- “CA Gov. Newsom Ignores His COVID Lockdown Rules, Attending 12-Person Dinner Party at The French Laundry,” Legal Insurrection, November 2020.
- “California Republicans Rip Newsom’s Hypocrisy for Highbrow Dining Excursion,” Fox News, November 2020.
- Taylor Penley, “Gavin Newsom Admits Dining at Swanky French Laundry During Pandemic Was ‘Dumb Mistake,'” Fox News, June 13, 2023.
- “Aaron Rodgers Says He Regrets His ‘Immunized’ Comment in 2021,” Fox 6 Now, August 12, 2024.
